Idle Wild
by Stealth Dragon
Summary: What is real? What is normal? Sheppard's going to have to get back to you on that, so please leave a message after the beep... I mean scream.


**Idle Wild**

by

Stealth Dragon

Rating – T for violence and drug use.

Disclaimer – No own, no own! No sue!

Synopsis – What is real? What is normal? Sheppard's going to have to get back to you on that, so please leave a message after the beep... I mean scream. Part of the Sheppard H/C Secret Santa. For Kodiak Bear who wanted a drugged Sheppard. I'm doping the lad to the gills for you. Enjoy and Merry Christmas.

SGA

" Your name is Elias Rylet. You are a weapons specialist. You train soldiers in the use of weaponry. You had a wife and child who died. Your name is Elias Rylet..."

Sheppard couldn't hold it in any longer. Laughter pooled in his throat like bile, expanding, damming back the air that needed to escape his lungs. It was hurting not to laugh, and there was really no need to hold it in. Well, there was, he just couldn't recall what that reason was. Or maybe there wasn't a reason.

It didn't matter, John couldn't hold it in anymore, so he let it out. It wasn't quite the burst of lung-constricting laughter he'd been expecting. There was a snort, then high-pitched chuckling that he knew well enough sounded deranged, so deranged it made him laugh harder. He'd never laughed like that before, and was amused that he could.

The little balding man in the white tunic and pants sitting before him did not look amused. He looked weary, like a parent having to put up with a rambunctious child who'd downed too many Mountain Dews.

" I'm not... Whoever you said I am," John said when he was able to catch his breath. " My name's John. What's yours?" John snapped his fingers, brightening. " Oh, I know, I know! Mr. Whipple? No, no, no, wait, wait." He patted the air one-handed. " He was the toilet paper guy, wasn't he? You're, uh... You're the Maytag repair guy, except he had more hair so that can't be right..."

The little bald man with the very round gut sighed heavily. " Mr. Rylet, please. Do not make this more difficult than it has to be, we are just trying to help you."

John covered his mouth trying to hold back the laughter that was making the nice looking little man so upset. He pulled his legs up to his chest, digging his bare toes into the cool sheet of the bed, and pushing himself back until his spine touched the wall.

John shook his head and dropped his hand. " No, no, no... I'm not Rylet. I'm John. And you repair refrigerators." All this chuckling was making his chest ache and his eyes water. He watched the little man rise from his stool, shaking his own head. The little man heaved out a heavy breath, then pulled a syringe from the pocket of his tunic.

" This batch is ineffective," he said as he uncapped the needle. " I did not expect this level of euphoria."

" You need something that subdues him."

John's dry eyes rolled to the left where a tall man in a white tunic and pants stood by the padded door of John's padded room. John couldn't recall why it was padded. Something about not hurting himself. He didn't really care to remember as he was more worried about the tall man with the shaved dark hair and arms so thick those biceps could be used to crush walnuts. The big man made John nervous, he always remembered that.

The little man nodded. " I'm still working on it. Last time, it made him fall asleep and I could not wake him for two days." The little man then gestured at John. " Irel, if you would?"

Irel unfolded his bulky arms and advanced on John. John cringed, and scooted back where he packed himself into the corner. He remembered why Irel made him nervous.

Everything Irel did hurt.

Irel grabbed John's arm in a grip that could bend iron. With one tug he yanked John from the corner and slammed him down onto the bed. He grabbed both of John's arms, pinning them to the mattress, then straddled his legs to pin them down. Euphoria fled, and terror filled the void. John kicked, squirmed, bucked his body and arched his back screaming every molecule of air from his lungs. There was a pinch at his neck, liquid ice speeding through his veins, and darkness slamming over his eyes.

SGA

" Your name is Elias Rylet. You are a weapons specialist. You train soldiers in the use of weaponry. You had a wife and child who died. Your name is Elias Rylet..."

John didn't really give a crap what his name was. He felt like hell, and the repetitive little man's nasal voice was only fueling the hell fire. Most of the aggravation was in his head that throbbed in time to his sluggish heart. It felt as though his brain was swelling three sizes too big, and was a centimeter away from exploding out of his skull. His limbs were useless, like noodles that ended up flopping back on the bed after the effort of raising them two inches. His vision was just as useless, all blurred and unsteady. The headache made his stomach boil, and sudden movement made his world spin and the bile start inching its way up.

" Your name is Elias Rylet. You are a weapons specialist. You train soldiers in the use of weaponry. You had a wife and child who died. Your name is Elias Rylet..."

John squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. " Shudup alr'dy," he slurred. A massive mistake. The bile took this as its cue to attack, and rushed acid hot to his mouth. John popped his eyes open and lurched to the side just in time for vomit the color of old pea soup to spray from his mouth and pool into the seams of the quilt-like padding.

Some of it stained the little man's white moccasins – or whatever the hell kind of shoes they were. The little man leaped up and back too little too late.

" Oh my," he said, heavy on the disappointment, like a parent clinging to his patience on finding the child stealing a cookie before dinner. "Well, that one was also a bust. The third batch, then."

The little man removed a syringe, uncapped it, tapped it, then pressed it into John's neck. There was a pinch, cold, and darkness.

SGA

John's fingers curled into the sheets, fingernails digging all the way to the mattress. His heart pounded like a hammer in his chest, and blood roared in his ears, louder and louder until the little man's words were washed away. John wanted to do nothing more than kill the little man. Wrap his long fingers around the thick neck, squeeze it, close off the trachea, cut off the air, snapped that neck like a twig.

" Your name is Elias Rylet. You are a weapons specialist. You train soldiers in the use of weaponry. You had a wife and child who died. Your name is Elias Rylet..."

He just wanted the little man to shut up, go away, take his body guard and leave Sheppard alone. But no. Everyday it was that same damn mantra, and every day some new wretched feeling as though his body didn't know whether to be sick or pointlessly giddy.

Right now it wanted to kill, and slap blessed silence over everything. Like hitting the mute button during commercials.

" Your name is Elias Rylet. You are a weapons specialist. You train soldiers in the use of weaponry. You had a wife and child who died. Your name is Elias Rylet..."

John's lips pulled back from his teeth. He shifted, pulling his feet beneath him and balancing on his toes. With a snarl of rage, he lunged and tackled the little man to the soft floor. Sheppard's fingers were just wrapping themselves around the pudgy throat when thick, bulging arms wrapped around John, pinning his arms, squeezing his chest, and pulling him away. John kicked and screamed, then lowered his head as far as he could to bite the thick flesh until blood dripped into his mouth metallic bitter.

Irel threw John into the wall, hard, too hard for the thin padding to do its job. John heard a crack, felt pain ripping up his arm, and pulsing through his head. He crumpled to the floor in a stunned heap teetering on the brink of unconsciousness. Through the gently growing haze, John saw Irel help the little man to his feet. The little man dusted himself off, straightened his tunic, then rubbed his throat with one hand while pulling out the undamaged syringe with the other.

" We're definitely avoiding that formula in the future," he said. The little man approached John and knelt beside him as he uncapped the syringe. He paused just as he was about to administer the juice, his focus turning from John's neck to his arm. " You used too much force, Irel. We're going to have to realign the bone." The little man resumed his intent. The syringe completed its journey to John's neck. There was a pinch, cold, and blackness again. John didn't mind it so much this time.

SGA

" Your name is Elias Rylet. You are a weapons specialist. You train soldiers in the use of weaponry. You had a wife and child who died. Your name is Elias Rylet..."

The nasal voice was an echo through the fog. John would have turned away, and for a moment thought he had, but the blob of color that was the little man still existed before him at the head of the bed. John heard a sigh like wind through a tunnel, and winced at the sound. Sound hurt, making his ears throb and his head with it. He wanted to sink into the haze where it was warm and pain-free, except he couldn't, not with the little man and the big man – the big man who hurt.

" I cannot say if this serum is working. He does not have the strength to respond. I'll need to wait until it wears off enough for him to speak."

" Maybe you're going about this wrong," said Irel from his spot by the door.

The blurry blob that was the little man shifted, probably turning to face Irel. " How so?"

Irel moved toward the bed. John would have cringed back had he the strength.

" This man's a soldier. He's going to fight your serums to the end. That first batch holds the key."

" The first batch was nothing more than a mild hallucinogen."

" I know. Increase its potency. Use the hallucinations against him, to confuse him, make him afraid."

John's heart pounded.

" What will that accomplish?" the little man asked. Not to scoff, he sounded generally intrigued. John's heart beat harder and faster.

" He will become exhausted mentally. Open for suggestion."

John's heart felt like it was going to explode if it beat any faster.

" He will be too weak to fight back."

SGA

There was laughter, always laughter, and even covering his ears couldn't stop it. There was cold, on the floor and in the air soaking into his skin to coat his bones in ice. There was also pain, like cramps in every muscle and fire licking his skin. His arm throbbed, and his chest would clench closing off the air, tighter and tighter until it was like breathing through a straw.

The world was wrapped in a fog of white and blobs of color that moved. The blobs would kneel beside him and say things, whisper things. There would be touching that stoked the flames turning his skin to charcoal, and making him scream until he had no voice left to scream with.

The smaller form was kind to him, spoke softly. The larger was harsh, and spoke with the voice of a demon. The bigger form hurt him, grabbed his throat, tossed him around like a doll of sticks and rags, kicked him, turned the constant thrum of pain into explosions of agony. Then darkness would come, releasing him just for a time. The problem was, the darkness wasn't all that great. Voices whispered there, too many to hear, speaking nonsense, or making promises that made John wish he could curl away out of existence.

" You must not fight, Elias," said the smaller form, kindly, softly, as something cool, soft, and wet stroked his face, dowsing the fire. " You must not hold on to these false memories. The more you fight, the more there will be pain. Your name is Elias Rylet. You are a weapons specialist. You train soldiers in the use of weaponry. You had a wife and child who died. You must accept what has happened to them, except reality for what it is. You cannot live in this false world you created for yourself. It will kill you, Elias, it will kill you."

Some of the voices agreed, others screamed at him not to listen. Too many voices speaking all at once. They rolled over him roaring like an ocean wave.

Ocean: He lived in a city on the ocean.

" It is not real, Elias. All of it. You must learn to accept your loss, Elias. You must let go."

" No," John gasped. He shook his head, and the world swam in his eyes. He knew who he was, where he came from, what were the lies.

" Then I cannot help you," the small figure said with tired regret, and moved away from him, beyond sight, leaving John to the cold and the voices that screamed telling him too much he did not understand. He could hear his heart pounding, slapping his tender ribs like a fist against the bars of a brittle cage. A new figure filled John's vision. John hadn't even realized it had come.

With it came pain, explosions of it, in his chest and stomach that shoved the air from his lungs. When the pain came to his head, darkness followed right after.

SGA

" What is your name?"

John curled his fingers into his hair, and tightened his arm around his legs. " E-Elias."

_Happy? Will you shut up now?_

The little man smiled. " Yes. Elias what?"

" Elias... Rylet?"

_Shut up and leave me alone_!

The little man sighed, and his body sagged in apparent relief. He leaned forward with his hand outstretched. John flinched trying to shrink into the corner, fully expecting another explosion of pain. The little man's hand touched the side of John's head, on the other side of where his hand clenched, and caressed John's scalp.

" Yes, that is right, Elias. Welcome back to us. I know it is not easy, but you have taken the first step. You are finding your way."

The little man removed his hand and pushed himself to his feet. The place where the little man had been stroking felt cold, a cold John found himself preferring than that touch. It put reality to what he didn't want to be real. Realty wasn't his friend at the moment. Elias Rylet. It was a name, just a damn name with a story that was supposed to be his. Pure fiction. John didn't remember a lick of it. The little man had said he had a wife and child, a dead wife and child, named Myagen and Ria. They'd died during an insurgence when rebels had attacked the capital.

A wife and child, his, dead. Why didn't he feel sorrow for them? Anger toward the ones who did this? He didn't even know what this wife and child looked like. Ria – was that a girl's name or a boy? Weapons specialist? He knew weapons. Trained with them and trained others, he knew that. What about flying? That John remembered with a clarity too sharp to be a fantasy, full of sensations such as rushing wind and a euphorically racing heart, but the little man had said nothing about that.

What John recalled as clear as day the little man called a fantasy. What he did not recall the little man called reality. If he had sunk into a fantasy, how deep had he gone to forget the faces of his own wife and child? Guilt constricted his chest and confusion made his skull throb. His own wife and child, and he didn't even know what they looked like.

John would have said the little man was lying, but last time he did that, the pain came back. The little man said it was because John's mind was sick. The little man gave him medicines to help, and said that the medicine could not help if John did not except the truth.

The problem was; the truth was a bunch of crap.

The little man pulled a syringe from his pocket, uncapped it then tapped it. " I'm still not certain of the effectiveness of Elias' medication, Irel. It is... Hard on his system. The medication needs to be more effective without the... uh... without side effects."

Irel shrugged. " It's getting results. The _side effects _may be unavoidable no matter what you do."

" But I'd prefer that they weren't."

" If the goal is achieved, then what does it matter? Elias will be returned to us, and his _fantasy_ will be buried. Isn't that the goal, after all? The end to the imaginary world he created?"

The little man approached John with the syringe raised. " That is the magistrate's goal. But I am the one who determines how it is reached. I'd rather it was reached smoothly, should I ever have to do this again."

Irel smiled coldly. " We can't all get what we want."

The little man knelt in front of John. " It won't be much longer now."

The syringe moved toward John, filled with a crystal clear liquid that would tear cold through his veins and drown him in sensation-less night. Lies, truths, the only certainty had become the constant darkness that left him in an arctic hell.

John didn't want to go back into the dark.

The needle touched John's neck, and John snapped. He lashed out with his hand grabbing the little man's neck, and with the other hand grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. In one fluid move he pulled the man forward, flipped him to his chest, and twisted his arm behind his back until the syringe was released, bouncing harmlessly on the padded floor.

Irel charged forward. John wrapped his arm around the little man's throat, and with his knee in the man's back, lifted him enough for Irel to see.

" Any closer and I snap his neck!" John snarled. The arm around the man's throat shook with tension and pain. His broken arm, and Irel knew this. He stepped back in no apparent concern to wait until the pain became too much for John to handle. And it was already starting. Sweat tickled down John's face, dripping from his jaw onto the padded floor.

" Son of a bitch!" he hissed. He gritted his teeth against the pain, tightening his hold, and reached out to the side snatching up the syringe. He stabbed it into the little man's neck, depressing the plunger. When it was empty he yanked it out, and using his thumbnail pulled the plunger up, filling the needle with air. The little man went limp, and John cried out from the pain of holding up a lipid head with a broken arm. So he dropped the little man, brought his arm to his chest, and pressed the needle of the syringe to the little man's neck.

" You so much as breath in a way I don't like," John gritted. " He gets a vein full of air. I hear it's not a fun way to die."

Now Irel was concerned, and pissed.

" What do you hope to accomplish by this?" he growled.

John shrugged one shoulder and grinned crookedly. " Oh, I don't know. Buy time to figure out how to get out of here. If that doesn't work, I'd be satisfied with the vindication alone. But I'd prefer to escape. So if you'd like your boss not to have a heart attack in the next two minutes, maybe you should think real carefully about letting me walk out of here."

" You wouldn't get very far," Irel stated matter of factly.

Irel was right, John wouldn't, not with his hostage being a dead weight on the floor.

" How about this, then?" John said. " Have someone contact my people, get them over here. Look, it doesn't matter how this is done. One way or another I'm getting the hell out of here!"

John's heart felt like a slab of meat tenderizing itself, making it hard to breathe and creating colorful sparks that were obscuring his vision. He was expending energy he didn't have, and he was pretty sure Irel was aware of this. The man wasn't making any moves toward the door. He stood there with his hands raised, shifting from foot to foot as though preparing to move, buying time of his own.

All John's actions had done was to create one hell of a Mexican standoff. One he was going to lose.

John pushed the needle into the little man's skin. " Go now! Or he dies!"

Irel stayed where he was. John was starting to suspect the big man didn't really give a damn about the little man.

John's heart doubled its already rapid rate, flooding him with too much adrenaline. He began shaking, though not entirely because of the adrenaline. This wasn't the time to placate pride. He was scared, terrified. Whether John depressed the plunger or not, since John had reacted dangerously, that had probably given Irel every right to break his neck without consequence. John swallowed and pulled the needle from the man's neck, holding it like a knife for when Irel finally made up his mind that the little man really wasn't all that important.

Irel smiled, and stepped forward.

John started chuckling, and didn't even know why. " Damn." He was screwed.

Irel advanced, so with nothing else to lose, John lunged.

SGA

" The area is secure, you're free to proceed."

Like Ronon needed permission. He was already moving through the sterile white hall, where people in clothes like white scrubs shuffled aside with heads ducked and gazes down like docile little children thoroughly chastised. The men who McKay referred to as 'orderlies' didn't try anything, except for one or two that Ronon incapacitated with a blast of red electricity. He led the way as the others followed to the room the nurse had told them where to find. It was at the far end of the facility, the final room in a section of the hospital that was rarely ever used, and normally empty.

Even walking fast, it took too long to reach, aggravating Ronon's irritation into a rage that had his finger itching to switch his weapon from stun to kill. He was sick of this, all the running around that had taken them nowhere, and the people who'd mislead them from the start. People he'd left stunned when he would rather they be left dead.

Ronon didn't even know if the others were still following him.

He found the empty hall, barely lit by electronic lights sputtering like dieing insect in glass bulbs. Ronon came to the last door on the right, and without hesitation kicked it in. The door slammed against the inner wall. Ronon burst in only to jerk to a stop on the threshold and lower his weapon.

" Whoa."

There were three bodies on the floor. The larger one was on his back with a syringe sticking out of his chest, right in his heart. The smaller was motionless with no visible injuries. The third snapped Ronon from his surprise to send him rushing into the room. He knelt beside Sheppard curled shivering with eyes open staring at the larger of the two bodies. One arm he held pressed to his chest, and the other was lying limp on the floor. There were bruises on his face – his eye, swollen shut, and his cheek. Blood leaking from his nose and mouth had drawn lines on his face that were dry and crusted. Bruises peeked out of the collar of the once white shirt, and there was a vicious bruise taking up the majority of the forearm.

Ronon knew that if he lifted Sheppard's shirt, he would find a hell of a lot more bruising just like that one.

John's breathing was strange, kind of hitching on each intake, and shallow. The heaving, erratic breaths inflated the flanks enough for Ronon to see each of Sheppard's ribs pressing against skin and shirt. It had been a hell of a three weeks for Sheppard. Ronon had been seething the entire time that he hadn't been able to crash the party. Now he was livid enough to discharge his weapon not set on stun at the nearest soft body that wasn't Sheppard. He tempered that desire to vent by keeping his focus on Sheppard, and the fact that he was here now to take care of him. Ronon leaned to the side, pulling the sheet off the bed with its padded frame. He pulled the sheet over Sheppard's body up to the neck. He then clasped John's sharp, knotted shoulder while leaning in.

" Sheppard? Hey, Sheppard. It's me, Ronon. Can you hear me?"

Sheppard's heavily dilated pupils were starting to make Ronon a little antsy, and he didn't do antsy.

The sheet rustled and bulged until the good hand of Sheppard's good arm – pale to make the blue veins vivid like rivers in winter – slid out from under the sheet to point a quaking finger at the larger of the two bodies.

" He – he would hurt me," he said, as though by way of explanation. Ronon shot an indifferent glance at the giant with a needle sticking out of his heart.

" He was going to... Again. So, I killed him."

Ronon looked back at Sheppard, who looked confused, and a little nauseas. Then his pale brow wrinkled, and he finally turned his eyes up to look at Ronon.

" My name's John, right?"

It was Ronon's turn to do the brow wrinkling. " Yeah."

" Sheppard?"

" Yeah."

Ronon felt John's body shudder, then the knotted muscles untie.

" Oh good." John's eyes slid closed, and his breathing deepened in sleep.

SGA

John awoke to a little bit of everything. Discomfort, lethargy, haze, and confusion. There were sounds – beeping – and smells – chemicals with just a hint of pine. He knew these sounds and these smells, the feel of cool sheets beneath his hand and warm blankets of cotton pressing on his body up to his chest. There were uncomfortable things, below his waist and on his face for the most part.

All in all, the familiarity made him feel safe enough to open his eyes. Slits at first letting in the dusky light spilling from overhead. When his eyes adjusted, he opened them more, and rolled them in their sockets to take in his surroundings. A shuddering breath of relief rushed from his chest.

The infirmary. Home. Real. Had to be real. There was no faking the horrid sensation of a catheter.

John dragged his heavy hand little by little up his side, across his chest wrapped in bandages, over his arm mummified in a cast and sling, and finally reaching its destination of the face. He felt under his nose the thin plastic tube snaking from one nostril and taped to the side of his face. He knew this tube, and it had nothing to do with delivering oxygen. It also explained why he didn't feel hungry. Not that he'd felt hungry for a while. It was just normal procedure for him to wake up in the infirmary with his stomach growling like Tigger after singing his theme song.

John tried to get his hand back beneath the blankets, but the hand's trip had been one way, and instead slid off his face to the side of the bed. John sighed dejectedly. Cool air was already worming its way to his body through his bear arm.

" I'll get that," a familiar voice rumbled. The warning didn't do squat. John still jumped when strong fingers wrapped around his wrist, sliding the arm back beneath the blankets.

" Sorry," Ronon said.

John closed his eyes and concentrated on steady breathing until his heart rate descended. He would have waved dismissively, but he wasn't making the same mistake twice.

" 'S good," he whispered, and wasn't sure if he'd actually said anything.

" Open," Ronon demanded.

John felt something cold and wet at his lips. He opened his mouth and took the offered ice chip that dripped sweet arctic liquid down his throat. He would have preferred a whole glass of cold water, but took what he could get for now.

John's eyes went past Ronon to the bed next to his where a slender lump lay curled under a blue blanket. He smiled.

Teyla.

He turned his head to see a larger lump, this one sprawled with most of the blanket slipping off.

Rodney.

It never stopped feeling good to wake up in this kind of company – the kind willing to pass out on an uncomfortable hospital bed waiting for you to awake. And willing to wait period.

" You found me," John rasped.

Ronon shrugged. " Took us a while. The ruler of that planet did everything he could to keep us from finding you. Turns out he'd wanted you because you made that weapon work. He thought you were an Ancient. We thought he was trying for an IDC code to get into Atlantis. Sorry we didn't get there sooner."

" You got there. That's what counts."

" But you know it'll never be enough." Another voice had said this.

John turned his head back to Rodney, who was now pushing himself upright to sit on the edge of the bed. McKay scrubbed the side of his face, then covered his mouth to stifle a yawn. " Ronon and I are in agreement that you pretty much saved yourself."

John inhaled a deep, cleansing breath as far as his ribs would allow. His heart was speeding up again. " I knocked one bad guy out... Killed the other. The rest of the time... I think... I think I was just laying there dieing."

Waiting to die or wanting to, that was the real question, and John was glad he couldn't remember.

Rodney was quiet for a moment, enough of a moment to get John's eyes to widen in surprise. The physicist's gaze was to the floor, his legs drifting idly back and forth.

" I guess that's why it'll never be enough. There will always be that nagging what if – namely what if we got there two minutes too late."

" Rodney..."

" But we'll get over it as we slowly come to realize – as you said – that we got there, and you're still alive." Rodney looked up. " The two minute too late'll probably haunt me for a while. You were in bad shape. Carson would explain it better, but the gist is your heart was beating all over the place at rates from sloth slow to rabbit fast. You started breathing in a way where you couldn't get oxygen, Carson couldn't give you anything for the pain until that nice little cocktail of drugs left your system. Oh, and at one point you woke up as we were taking you home, in some kind of hallucinatory fit, and punctured your lung with your own rib, which there had been plenty to chose from with so many being broken." Rodney held up a finger. " Not merely cracked, mind you, but broken clean through."

John's heart did a rather uncomfortable flip in his chest. " Oh." At least now he knew not to be taking any more deep breaths. He turned his head to look down at his blanket-covered chest, then turned back to Rodney. " It was really bad, then."

Rodney nodded soberly. " Really bad. Not like it was your fault or anything. We were pretty pissed... Not at you. I mean, yeah, definitely not your fault. It took Lorne, Stackhouse, and two other marines to restrain Ronon so he couldn't break that weasily little scientist's neck. Teyla got to spit on him, though."

John attempted to chuckle, which incited an ache riot in his chest, so he settled on a crooked grin. " Good for her."

" Then Weir locked out the address to that world," Ronon explained, " when we got back."

" Not like it matters," Rodney added. " The way we left that Frankenstein's lab they call a hospital and the hell Weir gave that Magistrate, I wouldn't be surprised if they found a way to lock _us_ out of the gate." He said this with a smug smirk that was very Rodney. Then the smile was gone, and Rodney slid from his seat to step up to John's bed. " You all right? I mean... Not to knock you back with shockers of shockers but... You've been kind of in and out of it four five days. Fever, hallucinations, vomiting, hacking up a lung chunks at a time... That sort of thing."

" McKay," Ronon growled. Rodney's hands shot up as though Ronon had whipped out his weapon.

" What!" He gestured at John. " He was going to ask anyways and you know it. Carson's going to repeat this stuff anyways. But in terms you need a dictionary to understand."

John looked between Rodney and Ronon. " Did Carson happen to mention anything about me being coherent a good sign?"

Rodney pressed his hand to John's forehead. " You don't feel sweltering, or warm." Rodney removed his hand, wiping it on the thigh of his pants. " But you are sweating an ocean. Personally I would think coherency and no fever a good sign."

John looked between Rodney and Ronon, then over at Teyla still sleeping. He curled his fingers into the smooth sheet of the mattress, and breathed through his nose absorbing the chemical clean scent of the infirmary. Warmth was like a shield around him, and the heart monitor set a rhythm he could have used to write a song – had he known how to write songs. He could play them, just never write them, and he had tried a few times when he was younger.

The feel of Ronon's hold on John's wrist still lingered. Same with the feel of Rodney's hand on his forehead. Suddenly all that John had been through – the drugs, pain, lies, questions – became nothing more than a misty memory he could easily dismiss as a dream. There had been no true tangibility in any of it. Snatches, maybe, just nothing that stuck, lingering the way the touch of his friends lingered. The aches of his body were dull pains like sleeping beasts that didn't know how to wake up. The ordeal could be as fictional as the man named Elias. John wouldn't let it be as that would be living in denial. He knew what had been done to him should be bothering him, haunting his nightmares, waking him up in a cold sweat, and it probably would for a while. He just wouldn't be surprised if it faded sooner, be the one demon he could actually shove in a closet and end up forgetting it was even there.

John smiled. " It is a good sign."

" For real?" Rodney asked heavy on the skepticism. " Or are you just saying that?"

" For real," John said, arching slightly to get his head in a more comfortable position on the pillow. The very real pillow in this very real place. " I'm good."

The End


End file.
